EDITORIAL

Editorial

Prof Sulina Green

Department of Social Work, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

The articles in this issue of Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk address a selection of topics ranging from a social development approach in social welfare and social work to protection and support programmes for parents, children, the young and the elderly.

The common theme of the first two articles is the implementation of a social development approach in social welfare and social work. The first article investigates how a developmental welfare state can be created in Zimbabwe and offers recommendations for the Department of Social Development on how this can be achieved. The second article explores the application of a social development approach to social work in health care and concludes that, despite their confusion about how to conceptualise the approach, social workers have made proactive attempts to implement it.

The next three articles deal with protection programmes in which parents and children are involved. The first article describes the views of witnesses and staff members on how children are affected by the admission of their parents into the witness protection programme in South Africa, and confirms the hardships of children in coping with the admission of their parents into this programme. The focus of the second article is on building a collaborative relationship with parents who are unwilling to participate in child protection services; it indicates that to encourage these parents to participate, it is crucial to learn what was causing their resistance. The third article deals with difficulties in implementing policy and legislation in adoption practices in South Africa and provides recommendations for practitioners to address these challenges.

The next pair of articles offers insights into care and prevention programmes for children and young people. The first article presents the results of a trial implementation of the Ecological Assessment and Intervention Protocol (ECO-AIP) in rural Child and Youth Care Centres in South Africa; it reports that the protocol added substantially to the staffs knowledge and skills base, leading to a general improvement in the quality and sophistication of the service. The second article discusses the perceptions of university students of life skills as a behaviour change strategy in the prevention of HIV and AIDS; it shows that providing education and support services for developing life skills may play a crucial role in the prevention of HIV and AIDS.

The final article describes the perceptions of correctional service providers and elderly parolees of post-incarceration social work programmes; it reveals the urgent need to develop programmes that cater exclusively for the needs of elderly parolees, and the importance of strengthening the reintegration services offered to elderly parolees.